Cheryl Tardif - Children of the Fog

“I… I thought you wanted to talk to me about Sam. I thought maybe you had found—” Her voice broke and she slumped forward, her hands covering her face.

“I’m sorry, Ms. O’Connell.”

“Please,” she said into her hands. “Just call me Sadie.”

“Look… Sadie. I know you don’t need any more on your plate, but—”

Her head snapped up. “But what? Eight million dollars is more important than my son? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Jay reached a hand across the desk. “Please, hear me out for a minute. Most kidnappers are related to the victim. Often it’s a spouse. Philip could have staged the kidnapping—”

“You think he took Sam? For what, ransom money?”

“He may have thought the bank would loan him money, or that he could get it from family or the law firm. If he thought he could get the money to pay them back and save himself, he could have taken Sam somewhere.”

Sadie was outraged. “No! Philip would never do that!”

“Desperate people do desperate things, Ms. O’Con—Sadie.”

Shoving her chair back, she jumped to her feet. “My husband may be a coward and a thief, but he would never put Sam’s life in danger for money. Never!”

Jay shifted in his chair. “It’s also possible that one of Philip’s clients took Sam. Your husband took money from some very dangerous people. People who would do anything to get it back. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

She gaped at him. “You think they took Sam to get back at Philip?”

“It’s possible.”

“No! It was The Fog.”

Sharp eyes pierced hers. “How do you know that?”

She opened her mouth, readying to tell him everything. But then the Fog’s hoarse voice filled her ears. “ Little bloody pieces.”

Her stomach twisted in knots.

Should she say something? Tell him what she knew?

“Mrs. O’Connell, if you know something—”

“No,” she said, turning away. “I don’t know anything that would help you find Sam.”

“Then why are you so sure it was The Fog?” Jay repeated.

Careful, Sadie.

“I just know. Call it instinct.” She paused in the doorway and gave the detective a hard look. “When you find The Fog, you’ll find my son.”

Afterward, Sadie drove to Gray Nuns Hospital. She’d been feeling a bit better as the day progressed, but she wanted to ensure that nothing was broken. Her ribs weren’t so tender—until the technician asked her to flounder around like a fish out of water on the x-ray table. Turn on her right. Then on her left. Then on her back. She was in more pain when she left the hospital. She drove home and took a couple of Tylenols.

With nothing else to do, she waited.

And waited some more.

When Philip returned home that evening, he retreated to his office. Sadie stared after him as fury boiled in the pit of her stomach. She was infuriated that the police weren’t looking for The Fog and stunned by the revelations of her husband’s criminal activities.

She knocked, then opened the door. “Philip, I need to talk—”

The words caught in the back of her throat.

The office was in absolute chaos. It looked and smelled like a bachelor pad. The sofa along one wall was covered with twisted sheets and blankets, while a pile of Philip’s clothes had been kicked into the corner. It was impossible to tell if they were clean or dirty. Empty pizza boxes and other take-out containers covered a table by the window, and two Fleming Warner coffee mugs, half-filled with congealed week-old coffee, sat on the oak desk. One of them had left a coffee ring on the wood surface.

But what shocked her even more was Philip.

He had a gun.

“What are you doing?” she asked slowly.

Philip calmly wiped the weapon with a cloth and placed it in a cedar box. “Don’t worry, Sadie. It’s just for show.”

“Show for who?” she sputtered. “Are you crazy? We can’t have a gun in the house. Not with Sam—” She broke off and glanced at the floor.

“It’s not loaded,” he said, like that made any difference.

“It’s illegal . How’d you get it in the first place?”

She watched as he pushed away from the desk, strode toward the closet and nudged the box onto the top shelf.

“Someone got it for me,” he said. “He owed me a favor.”

“And you think you need it—a gun.”

She looked at him closely, wondering why he was so nervous, why a man who had followed every law—except fidelity—had a weapon that was meant for one purpose. To kill.

Her mouth thinned. “You’re afraid of whoever you took the money from, aren’t you?”

Philip looked shocked. “They contacted you?”

“No, the police did. They told me everything.”

“That’s impossible,” he said with false bravado. “They don’t know everything.” He sat down at his desk.

“They know enough to drag me into the station and threaten to charge me if I told you they talked to me.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

She sank into the chair across from him. “The police think that Sam’s disappearance is related.”

“It isn’t,” he said, shaking his head firmly. “My associates wouldn’t take him. They would’ve taken me for a ride instead, maybe slashed my tires as a warning. There’s no way they took Sam.” He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of this.

“I believe you, Philip. But we don’t need the police wasting time on your associates when they should be out looking for The Fog. That’s who took Sam. I’m certain of it.” She frowned. “Wait! How did you know about the investigation? The police said it was an undercover operation.”

Philip massaged his temple. “I got a call from one of the investors. He has some connections in the police department and found out that Morris and I were being investigated. He threatened to kill me if I said anything about his business transactions. And believe me, he’d do that way before he snatched a kid.”

“Who are these people you stole from?”

He shrugged. “Drug dealers mostly.”

She gritted her teeth, resisting the temptation to reach across the desk and slap him. “Jesus, Philip! Did you honestly think they’d let you steal their money?”

“I was desperate. We’ve got a heavy mortgage, bills that just keep adding up and you always need money for—”

“Don’t make excuses,” she snapped, jumping to her feet. “And don’t you dare lay this on me. You stole the money. You messed with the wrong people.”

A million questions filled the prolonged silence.

Then Philip said, “What do you want from me? Blood?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” she said tightly, before stalking out of the room.

Finally, she had the last word.

The next day there was still no sign of Sam.

Frustrated by the police department’s lack of progress, she made up posters with Sam’s face on them. She was careful not to mention The Fog. She taped the posters on postal boxes, bank windows, grocery store bulletin boards and any other place she could think of. Then she delivered them to every house in a five-block radius, hoping that someone had seen something. A license plate, a car… Sam. Anything.

Twice, she picked up the phone to call Matthew Bornyk, the father of the latest missing girl. But what could she possibly say to him?

Hi, you don’t know me, but we have something in common. Both of our kids were taken by an insane maniac, and I saw him and spoke to him, but didn’t tell the police.

“Jesus, Sadie,” she muttered under her breath. “He’ll think you’re just as insane.”

A part of her yearned to talk to someone who knew exactly how she felt, someone who was just as scared, just as empty. Every time she saw Cortnie’s father on television or heard him on the radio, she could tell by his eyes and voice that he felt his daughter’s loss just as deeply as she felt Sam’s.